Rotation

There are no centers. Each rhythm takes me closer to another distant fringe, a figure 8 orbit from one gravitational pull, out to its weakest point, pulled by another around so fast my brain throws up, slingshot back into the darkness, dragged around again and again and over. Every time I pass that spot, a place where I should just sit, spinning, equally between them both, I never hover, I never slow. Strange how despite everything having happened already and going to happen again, everything looks different every time.

I can brush the same fourteen hairs (in an imperfect strand) again out of your eyes as you look down at me, hard-water tears clinging to your eyelashes. I can scatter arpeggios up and down your spine while you lay still on your stomach, head turned to the left, even breathing, even perspiration, the smell of after sex, after crying, after dissatisfaction. Still, that warming can help us forget that it is again snowing outside, or that the months have pressed past us again, that there is no ending to this succession.

There is always another face.

I am somewhere else, this kissing taste of spearmint and cloves, removing glasses to places they will always be misplaced. And you are not blonde, but asymmetrical and burgundy, nothing compromised. The music from noise reduction headphones, the perfect digital silences between songs, the stealing of whatever made this meaningful, I have been here before, without her. Now I can look straight down her shirt to her toes, painted purple for the springtime fantasy. I will promise her nothing.

I do not feel fractured, though when I look around everything seems to feed off everything else, bleed into everything around it, connect to everything about it. It is as liberating as realizing how un-unique everyone really is; a sympathetic searching for understanding. I do not believe in empathy. I do not believe anything that I say.